A PROMISE.

OF THUNDER.

CONNIE.

MASON.

A PROMISE OF THUNDER.

"I want to kiss you until your lips are swollen from my kisses and your knees grow weak." Adroitly Storm stepped out of Thunder's reach, fearing his next words. "I want to make love to you, Storm Kennedy."

Storm's mouth gaped open, unable to give voice to all the despicable names she wanted to call him. Swallowing convulsively, she managed to say, "Get-get out of here! How dare you say such terrible things to me."

"Among the Lakota it isn't terrible to want a woman. It is right and natural. You are a widow, not unaccustomed to a man's desires. And you want me, I can tell."

"You can tell no such thing! That's evil."

Thunder laughed as if sincerely amused. "We'll see, Storm Kennedy, we'll see. Just remember, lady, one day Thunder and Storm will come together in a brilliant display of pa.s.sion. The confrontation should prove a spectacular one."

To Alicia Condon and her new daughter Zoe.

Prologue.

The People called him Thunder because of the restless fury trapped in his tormented soul. His family had named him Grady. Grady Farrell Stryker, son of Shannon Branigan and half-breed Swift Blade Stryker. He was three-quarters white; yet except for the pure deep blue of his eyes he looked all Indian. His father was the son of a princess of the mighty Lakota Nation. His grandmother was daughter to a chief.

He stood tall and proud on a high bluff, his magnificent body silhouetted against the stark beauty of the territory called the Black Hills. A violent storm raged around him, illuminating the sky with an awesome display of nature's most powerful destructive force. Rain lashed his ma.s.sive sun-bronzed body, ill protected against the elements in brief breechclout and moccasins. But Thunder neither noticed nor responded to the biting sting of pelting rain.

His arms were raised in open defiance, challenging the heavens, defying death, daring Wakantanka, the Grandfather Spirit, to shoot a lightning bolt through his tormented heart. He feared nothing, called no man master.

Grady Farrell Stryker had been an idealistic young man before he fled from his home near Cheyenne, Wyoming. But heartsick and bitter over the tragic death of his young wife, Summer Sky, he had joined his father's tribe looking for revenge. There, among the People, he had gained maturity and strength, if not peace of mind. He had partic.i.p.ated in the sacred Sun Dance and had the scars on his chest to prove it. He had ridden with renegades and taken the lives of men like those who were responsible for Summer Sky's death.

Most White Eyes called him "Renegade," but the People thought him brave and majestic. He was despised by the whites for the havoc he wrought in their lives. He knew no peace; he knew only the thunder of discontent in his heart. He worshiped no White G.o.d but rather the Earth, the Sun, the Sky, the Moon, and the elements that provided him sustenance. He believed in the Grandfather Spirit because He was the mighty provider who nourished the People.

A wild cry of protest and outrage flew past Thunder's mouth as he raged against the whites who stole Indian reservation land and opened it up to settlers despite treaties. The People were forced to exist on smaller and smaller tracts of inferior land where food was scarce or nonexistent. Food promised by Indian agents never arrived, and Thunder had stolen many a shipment of beeves and grain destined for white consumption to give to the People.

Jagged streaks of lightning struck the ground around him, but Thunder neither flinched nor moved, standing as if carved in granite. His face was set in stone, his tawny muscles sculpted from st.u.r.dy oak. Yet he survived the storm to live another day, though it mattered little to him if Wakantanka called him to join his ancestors.

"Why, Grandfather?" he called out in a mighty roar that rivaled the very name he was given. "Why have you spared me? Of what use am I to the People? Little by little our culture is dying and the People scatter like leaves before the wind. The day of the mighty Lakota is long past."

Suddenly the heavens parted and a glimmer of sun shone through the dark clouds. And for the first time in all the years since he had joined the People, Grandfather spoke to him.

"Go forth, Thunder, your destiny lies not with the People. The time has come to seek the future for which you were destined. You have learned and prospered, but your greatest challenge lies in another direction."

"You would have me leave, Grandfather? What of my son, Summer Sky's child?"

"Little Buffalo will be safe with the People until you return for him."

"Why must I leave, Grandfather? My spirit will not rest until I have avenged Summer Sky's death."

"Riding with renegades brings no honor to your name, Thunder. There is no peace in your heart; it craves vengeance and thrives on violence."

"How will I find peace, Grandfather?"

"The peace you seek will come with the Storm. Until you meet and conquer the Storm your spirit will know no rest. Always remember that Thunder is the harbinger of Storm, but Thunder can only exist in the bosom of Storm's soul."

Puzzled, Thunder mulled over Grandfather's words, awed by the wisdom that went beyond mortal comprehension.

"Grandfather, I do not understand."

The heavens were silent; Wakantanka spoke no more.

Chapter One.

Guthrie, Oklahoma.

September 12, 1893.

Grady Stryker viewed the territorial capital of Oklahoma with a jaundiced eye. He had arrived the day before purely out of curiosity, and now he pushed and shoved his way through the crowded streets and wondered what in the h.e.l.l he was doing in Guthrie four days before the biggest land rush in the country's history. He'd heard that six million acres had been purchased from the Cherokee tribes and that 100,000 people were expected in Guthrie to partic.i.p.ate in the run. If the crowded streets were any indication, Grady suspected most of those 100,000 souls were already in town.

Pausing a moment to get his bearings, Grady was jostled from behind as someone plowed into his broad back. Gaining his balance, he turned to scowl at the man. It took only one look at Grady's dark visage to make the man turn and flee. Grady gazed after him, a lopsided grin hanging on one corner of his mouth. He wondered what the man would have done if he'd seen him six months earlier, wearing only breechclout and moccasins, his muscles rippling beneath his smooth, sun-bronzed skin.

In deference to civilization, he was wearing buckskin trousers now, made especially for him by Laughing Brook, and a b.u.t.ter-soft shirt of the same material. But he stubbornly clung to the moccasins and adamantly refused to cut his shoulder-length hair, which he wore tied back with a leather thong. His features were proud and intrepid, his Indian ancestry evident in the bold slash of his cheekbones, finely chiseled nose, and sun-bronzed skin. Only the deep blue of his eyes, inherited from Shannon, his Irish-American mother, marked him as having white blood.

There was no denying that Grady Farrell Stryker was handsome, as handsome as his father, Swift Blade. And dangerous. There was a dark, brooding sensuality about him that most women found irresistible. As for his heart, Grady had none. From the moment his pregnant wife, Summer Sky, had been killed by irresponsible white men looking for a good time, he had erected a sh.e.l.l of bitterness around himself and disavowed his white heritage. Then he had fled to the People with his small son, where Jumping Buffalo, Summer Sky's father, had welcomed him. From that day until the day on the mountaintop when Grandfather spoke to him, advising him to leave the reservation, he had been known as Thunder, most feared of all the renegades roaming the plains.

Snorting in disgust, Grady wondered again what he was doing in Guthrie. It wasn't as if he intended to take part in the rush for land. Had he wanted land he could have gotten it from his own father, who owned countless acres in Wyoming. Thinking about his family gave Grady an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn't seen his father or mother in over three years and a.s.sumed that they had heard of his lawless existence by now and disowned him. Until the day Summer Sky was killed he had been a most dutiful son.

He had been but twenty-two years old that fateful day and had grown up instantly as he held his dying wife in his arms. Before then his life had been idyllic, with nothing to overtax him but the changes in the weather. He had married his childhood playmate at age nineteen and by twenty-two had one child with another on the way. He knew no hardships, encountered no difficulties, faced no challenges. Until his wife had been taken from him in a single act of violence.

Grady ambled down the street, his mind a thousand miles away, to a place where only happiness existed. Fortunately he had grown older and wiser since then and had learned that happiness was only a myth. Distracted by his thoughts but ever aware and watchful for potential danger, his attention was captured by an errant ray of sunlight as it caught a reflection and sent it back to him, nearly blinding him.

If it wasn't such a clear, sunny day, Grady would have sworn a flash of lightning had descended from the sky. But there wasn't a storm cloud in sight. When his vision cleared he saw that the brilliant light was the result of sunshine reflecting off a woman's long shiny hair. And what hair it was! The color of molten gold, it cascaded down her shoulders to her waist, hampered only by a length of ribbon to keep it from flying around her face. He couldn't see her features, for her back was turned as she peered down the street as if waiting for someone, but instinctively Grady knew she would be beautiful.

He watched her, arrested, unable to turn away from the spectacle of her glorious mane of hair, brushing her waist in so provocative a manner. Grady's own mother's hair was a deep, rich chestnut, but somehow this particular shade of blond was much more t.i.tillating. Suddenly the woman turned, and Grady saw that the rest of her was just as enticing as he supposed. He hadn't looked at another woman with desire since Summer Sky had been taken from him. His brief encounters with the opposite s.e.x had taken place merely to appease his healthy body and l.u.s.tful urges, usually with widows of the tribe who made themselves available to unmarried males.

Storm Kennedy tapped her foot impatiently. Where was Buddy? she wondered as she peered anxiously down the street for the wagon they had driven all the way from Missouri. Married less than a month, Storm and Buddy had decided to take advantage of the free land offered by the government. They had left their home in Missouri to take part in the land run in Oklahoma the moment they learned the Cherokee Strip had been opened to settlement. It seemed the only way they would ever be able to own land, and since neither were fainthearted, they had bid their families good-bye, pulled up stakes, and set out for Guthrie. They had arrived just this morning, and Buddy was out now trying to find them a place to sleep until the actual day of the land rush. While she was waiting, Storm had mailed a letter to their parents, informing them that they had arrived safely.

Jostled by pa.s.sersby, Storm found it increasingly difficult to maintain her stance at the edge of the wooden sidewalk. The sun was hot and she had forgotten her bonnet in the back of the wagon. Even now she could feel the heat penetrating the thick strands of her hair and beads of sweat collecting on her neck and dampening her collar.

Suddenly she felt a p.r.i.c.kling sensation at her nape and her flesh tingled, warning her of danger. Her warm sherry eyes narrowed as she raised them to seek out the cause of her distress. She saw nothing but people. People everywhere, coming, going, milling in front of stores and queuing in long lines at the train station to purchase tickets to take them to the Cherokee Outlet.

Then she saw him.

He was staring at her, his stark face intense with concentration. His midnight black hair hung beneath his shabby broad-brimmed hat to brush his ma.s.sive shoulders, clubbed at the back with a leather thong. His dusty buckskins molded to the thick muscles of his torso and thighs. Instead of boots his feet were encased in comfortable moccasins. He wore his gun low on his narrow hips, tied down at the thigh in the manner of gun-slingers. A wicked-looking knife was tucked into his belt. Storm thought she had never seen a more dangerous-looking man. At first his inscrutable expression and torrid scrutiny frightened her, then it made her mad. Obviously he was an Indian. Or even worse, a half-breed. One of those despicable men scorned by both cultures.

She returned his look, lifting her stubborn little chin at a defiant angle. She held his blistering gaze for all of five seconds before dragging her eyes away and deliberately turning her head in another direction. How dare the brazen creature stare at her in such a bold manner! she fumed in impotent rage. She was a married woman, for heaven's sake. She had loved Buddy since they were both five years old.

Grady was so amused by the frosty blonde's efforts to ignore him that he allowed the tiniest of grins to soften his hard features. Briefly he wondered who she was and what she was doing in Guthrie. But his rapt attention diminished when he recalled that the woman was white, and her scathing perusal made it perfectly clear that she felt nothing but contempt for him. Which was fine with him. He had no use for whites, male or female. He had abandoned his mother's people when he left Peaceful Valley to seek a life among the renegade tribes of the once mighty Lakota, called Sioux by the White Eyes.

Grady shrugged off the unaccountable need to bound across the street and confront the woman and continued on his way. Remaining in Guthrie held little appeal for him, and he decided to retrieve his horse from the livery and be on his way. He wasn't exactly unknown in these parts, due mostly to his a.s.sociation with renegades and later as a gunman spoiling for a fight. No matter what town he had drifted to since he left the reservation months ago, he had managed to cause enough trouble to earn him the t.i.tle of "Renegade."

His reputation usually preceded him, and there were always men anxious to challenge him in those nameless towns along the Western Frontier. In the past six months he had drawn against more men than he could count on his two hands. Though he had rarely been the challenger, he was never reluctant to practice his amazing skills with a gun. Many of those men ended up dead by his hand, and more often than not the sheriff had escorted him out of town. Since he hadn't been the one to offer the challenge, he had never been arrested, but Grady knew that one day his luck would change. Either he'd fail to outdraw his opponent and end up pushing up daisies in Boot Hill or find himself behind bars. Either way made little difference to him. His life had become a succession of violent acts for which his soul was forever d.a.m.ned. He didn't even have the courage to go back home, despite the fact that his parents would probably forgive him if he mended his ways.

Violence begets violence. Hadn't those words been drummed into him as a child? Now it was too late to change his ways; too late for Summer Sky, whose life had been taken when she had had so much to live for. It would take a miracle to make him whole again, Grady decided as he hastened his steps toward the livery. His son, Little Buffalo, would be better off without him. Laughing Brook, Summer Sky's younger sister, loved Little Buffalo dearly and would see to his raising. As for him, Grady wished that Grandfather hadn't advised him to leave the People. His own restless spirit demanded satisfaction for the brutal death of Summer Sky, and even though he hadn't yet reached his twenty-sixth year he felt his life's cycle drawing to an end.

A miracle, that's what he needed.

Grady knew miracles didn't exist.

Suddenly, without warning, Grady's keen perception sensed danger. He could smell it. Grady tensed, his hand hovering inches above his gun, every muscle in his body taut; his years of living precariously had taught him self-preservation and survival of the fittest. Every one of his instincts were intact when he sensed someone stalking him, someone whose revolver was already clearing his holster. Fortunately Grady was accustomed to performing at a disadvantage and had learned to work with it in ways that only Indians could comprehend.

"Draw, Renegade! You killed my brother in Dodge City and now you're gonna pay."

The roar of thunder sounded in his ears. The People had named him well. In that instant Grady Stryker ceased to exist and Thunder was reborn, swift, keen, perceptive-deadly.

Sensing trouble, people on the streets scattered like leaves before the wind. Women screamed, clutching their children as they hustled them out of harm's way, and men, placing themselves behind protection, watched with perverse fascination as the two men prepared to outdraw one another.

Across the street, Storm Kennedy noticed nothing but Buddy approaching in the wagon. Expelling a sigh of relief, she stepped out into the street. Buddy stopped the wagon beside her, preparing to jump down and boost Storm into the seat beside him.

"I found us a place to stay!" Buddy shouted, excited that he had obtained lodging in a city so obviously overcrowded. "We can sleep in a real bed tonight. Mrs. Luke over at the boarding house just threw out a guest because he couldn't pay, so she let us have his room. I knew luck was with us."

"How wonderful," Storm cried. Buddy's boyish enthusiasm for this venture had fired her own, and she was as eager as he to claim their 160 acres of land and become landowners.

Grady knew the odds were against him, but giving up wasn't his style. He'd faced tougher compet.i.tion than this during the past months. If he'd killed the man's brother, it was because the brother had recklessly challenged him. He recalled that day in Dodge City, even remembered what the brother looked like. And as had happened so many times in the past, that face took on the characteristics of the men who had killed Summer Sky. The man had accused him of cheating at cards, drew, and lost. Grady felt no remorse over the death of another nameless white drifter.

Gathering his wits, Grady turned and dropped to one knee, at the same time drawing and aiming. He knew from the sound of his voice exactly where the man stood-it was an uncanny ability, knowing where the enemy was-and fired off a shot, all in the s.p.a.ce of a heartbeat. The man squeezed the trigger an instant later. Already wounded by Grady's bullet, his arm flew up and the shot went wild. It found its mark in the body of Buddy Kennedy.

A high-pitched screech was the first indication to Grady that something was amiss, something that had nothing to do with the man lying wounded in the dusty street. Once the danger was past, people began streaming into the open, seeming to converge on one place. Before the crowd cut off his view, Grady had a brief glimpse of a golden head bent over a still figure lying in the street beside a wagon.

Noting that his friends were already helping the wounded gunman to his feet, Grady gave him no more than a pa.s.sing glance, holstered his gun, and rose to his full six feet three inches. He had no idea what dire mishap had taken place across the street, but something compelled him to investigate. Stretching his long legs, he strode briskly across the teeming thoroughfare and plowed into the crowd milling around the two figures who appeared to be the center of attention. When people saw who it was they opened up a path for him, allowing Grady a clear view of the scene.

A young man, younger even than Grady, lay stretched out on the ground. He was so white Grady knew instinctively that he was dead. Blood seeped from a neat round hole in his head, staining the ground beneath him. The blond beauty Grady had noticed earlier was bent over him, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, her heartrending sobs piercing the air.

Shock and disbelief nearly paralyzed Storm. One minute she was talking to Buddy and the next he lay dead on the ground. Even in her grief she didn't need a doctor to tell her that her childhood friend and companion was dead. It was all so senseless, so utterly wrong, that Buddy should die because two vicious men carried their grudge into the streets where innocent pa.s.sersby could be hurt. Why Buddy? she raged in silent protest. He had so much to live for-so much enthusiasm for life and this new venture they had undertaken.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, burning through the material of her dress. Turning her head, she peered at Grady through eyes misty with tears-and the breath slammed out of her chest. It was him! The half-breed Indian who was the cause of Buddy's death. Her warm sherry eyes turned glacial, her face hardened, and she deliberately shrugged off his hand where it gripped her shoulder.

"You!" The word exploded from her mouth like a vile curse. "Murderer!"

For a moment Grady looked stunned. Then his face cleared as he realized what had happened. He had heard the other gunman fire his weapon, but had given it little thought since the bullet had gone astray. It appeared now that the bullet had struck down an innocent bystander-the woman's brother? husband?

"I'm sorry," Grady muttered. He had difficulty working his tongue around the words. Apologizing was something he rarely did. And when he did, it was never a graceful admission. "I fired only once and my aim was true. It wasn't my bullet that struck down your ..."

"... Husband. Buddy was my husband. And he would be alive right now if you and your friend hadn't aired your differences on a public thoroughfare." Her voice had risen steadily until she was screaming at him.

"Calm down, lady," Grady urged. He wished desperately that he had never set foot in Guthrie, Oklahoma, this day.

"How can I calm down when my husband lies dead? How dare you! What does a savage know about grief?"

"More than you give him credit for," Grady bit out as he sought to soothe the distraught young woman.

"Just go away! Can't you see you're making matters worse by just being here?"

Frowning, Grady stepped aside, allowing a woman to help Storm to her feet. Two men quickly stepped forward to lift Buddy into the wagon and drive him to the undertaker.

"What are you going to do now, dear?" Grady heard the woman ask as she led Storm away.

Grady wanted to follow, to ask the blonde's name, but by then the sheriff was pushing his way through the crowd, and Grady spent the next hour answering questions. By the time the sheriff had interviewed witnesses and satisfied himself that the attack upon Grady had been unprovoked, the beautiful widow was gone.

On September 13, 1893, absolute chaos reigned in the town of Guthrie. The line to buy train tickets to the new towns of Enid and Perry, where settlers hoped to claim land, was even longer than the day before. But for reasons he himself did not understand, Grady lingered in town, sleeping in the livery when he found no other suitable lodging. For a man without a conscience, he had lost a lot of sleep thinking about the provocative blonde and her dead husband. He wondered what she planned to do now that her husband was dead. Did she have family back East somewhere?

Try as he might, Grady could not deny the fact that it was his conscience that brought him to the undertaker that bright September morning. A somber man dressed in black greeted him at the door.

"How may I help you?"

Grady cleared his throat and glanced around the room filled with wooden boxes.

"There was a man brought in here yesterday. Young, gunshot. Do you know his name?"

"Ah, you must mean Mr. Kennedy. The funeral is this afternoon. Are you a member of the family?"

"No," Grady said harshly, unwilling to admit he was the indirect cause of the young man's death. "Has the burying been paid for?"

"Why, no, it hasn't," the undertaker said. His suspicions fully aroused now, the undertaker took a good look at Grady, put two and two together and came up with the right answer. "Why, you're the man who shot Mr. Kennedy."

Grady's mouth stretched into a grimace. "I don't shoot unarmed men. Kennedy was killed by a stray bullet. But I'm not here to defend myself, I want to pay for the burying."

"Why? The man has a widow."